Irillon stared at him in amazed silence.
“Wizardry has been around for centuries, Irillon,” the captain said. “In all that time, naturally we’ve found arrangements that are comfortable for everyone. What sort of fools would we be if we didn’t know wizards use hair and blood and bone, and pieces of scaffold, and fireplace ash, and dragon’s scales, and a thousand other things? And what would be gained by either denying wizards those ingredients, or giving them away for free?”
Irillon still couldn’t think of anything to say.
“Now, do you have coins, or will we need to work out an exchange?”
“Uh... how much... I have some...”
And the dickering began.
In the end, Irillon paid seven bits in silver — all she had with her — and placed the Dismal Itch on two guardsmen who had been involved in a drunken brawl, promising to remove it again in three days. In exchange, she kept the blood, hair, and splinters she had already collected, and was allowed to depart freely.
Captain Alderamon escorted her to the castle gate. There he patted her on the shoulder and said quietly, “Here you go, girl, safe and sound — but take my advice and don’t come back here. I told you we didn’t want any trouble with the Wizards’ Guild, and we don’t, but next time might be different. Don’t come here again.”
Irillon, greatly relieved that her mission appeared to be a success and made bold thereby, looked up at him. “Why not?” she asked.
Alderamon grimaced. “Do you really need to ask? Your imitation of a Coastal accent is terrible.”
Then he pushed her out the gate and turned away.
About “Sirinita’s Dragon”
I was invited to contribute a story to an anthology called The Ultimate Dragon. I saw no reason it shouldn’t be an Ethshar story, and something other than the standard hero-slays-dragon piece. I had previously mentioned wealthy Ethsharites keeping baby dragons as pets, and babies grow up, so what happened to those pets? Sirinita finds out.
Sirinita’s Dragon
“You’re going to kill him?” Sirinita said, staring at her mother in disbelief.
Sensella of Seagate looked at her daughter with surprised annoyance.
“Well, of course we’re going to kill it,” she said. “What else could we do? In a few sixnights it’ll be eating us out of house and home — and in a year or two it might very well eat us. Just look how big it’s getting!”
Sirinita looked.
She had to admit, Tharn was getting large. When he had first hatched she could sit him on her shoulder, with his tail around her neck, and almost forget he was there; now she could barely pick him up with both hands, and he certainly didn’t fit on her shoulders.
And he did eat a lot.
“Really, Sirinita,” her mother said, “you didn’t think we could keep a full-grown dragon around the house, did you?”
“No,” Sirinita admitted, “but I thought you could just let him go, somewhere outside the walls — I didn’t know you were going to kill him!”
“Now, you ought to know better than that,” Sensella said. “If we turned it loose it would eat people’s livestock — and that’s assuming it didn’t eat people. Dragons are dangerous, honey.”
“Tharn isn’t!”
“But it will be.” Sensella hesitated, then added, “Besides, we can sell the blood and hide to wizards. I understand it’s quite valuable.”
“Sell pieces of him?” This was too much; Sirinita was utterly horrified.
Sensella sighed. “I should have known this would happen. I should never have let you hatch that egg in the first place. What was your father thinking of, bringing you a dragon’s egg?”
“I don’t know,” Sirinita said. “Maybe he wasn’t thinking anything.”
Sensella chuckled sourly. “You’re probably right, Siri. You’re probably just exactly right.” She glanced over at the dragon.
Tharn was trying to eat the curtains again.
Sirinita followed her mother’s gaze. “Tharn!” she shouted. “Stop that this instant!”
The dragon stopped, startled, and turned to look at his mistress with his golden slit-pupilled eyes. The curtain, caught on one of his fangs, turned with him, and tore slightly. The dragon looked up at the curtain with an offended expression, and used a foreclaw to pry the fabric off his teeth.
Sensella sighed. Sirinita almost giggled, Tharn’s expression was so funny, but then she remembered what was going to happen to her beloved dragon in a few days’ time, and the urge to giggle vanished completely.
“Come on, Tharn,” she said. “Let’s go outside.”
Sensella watched as her daughter and her pet ran out of the house onto the streets of Ethshar.
She hoped they wouldn’t get into any trouble. Both of them meant well enough, but the dragon did have all those claws and teeth, and while it couldn’t yet spit fire it was beginning to breathe hot vapor. And sometimes Sirinita just didn’t think about the consequences of her actions.
But then, that was hardly a unique fault, or even one limited to children. Sensella wondered again just what Gar had thought he was doing when he brought back a dragon’s egg from one of his trading expeditions.
One of the farmers had found it in the woods while berry-picking, Gar had said — had found a whole nest, in fact, though he wouldn’t say what had happened to the other eggs. Probably sold them to wizards.
And why in the World had she and Gar let Sirinita hatch the egg, and keep the baby dragon long enough to become so attached? That had been very foolish indeed. Baby dragons were very fashionable, of course — parading through the streets with a dragon on a leash was the height of social display, and a sure way to garner invitations to all the right parties.
But the dowagers and matrons who did that didn’t let their children make playmates of the little monsters! The sensible ones didn’t use real dragons at all, they bought magical imitations, like that beautiful wood-and-lacquer thing Lady Nuvielle carried about, with its red glass eyes and splendid black wings. It moved and hissed and flew with a perfect semblance of life, thanks to a wizard’s skill, and it didn’t eat a thing, and would never grow an inch.
Tharn ate everything, grew constantly, and couldn’t yet fly more than a few feet without tangling itself up in its own wings and falling out of the sky.
Sirinita adored it.
Sensella sighed again.
Outside, Sirinita and Tharn were racing down Wargate High Street, toward the Arena — and Tharn was almost winning, to Sirinita’s surprise. He was getting bigger. He was at least as big as any dog Sirinita had ever seen — but then, she hadn’t seen very many, and she had heard that out in the country dogs sometimes grew much larger than the ones inside the city walls.
Much as Sirinita hated to admit it, her mother was right. Tharn was getting too big to keep at home. He had knocked over the washbasin in her bedroom that morning, and Sirinita suspected that he’d eaten the neighbors’ cat yesterday, though maybe the stuck-up thing was just hiding somewhere.